White Cube

Renzo Martens, 2020

Runtime 77 minutes

In White Cube, artist Renzo Martens radically investigates his own presence in a social experiment, which takes place on a plantation in Congo.

In a provocative and cinematographically layered style, he unfolds the intriguing story of Mathieu Kasiama and a group of plantation workers, who make self-portraits in clay. Their sculptures are 3D scanned, sent to a museum in New York and reproduced in chocolate. The New York Times calls their sculptures "the best art show of the year." This leads to the plantation workers buying back their land, returning the art and returning the White Cube to Congo.